To track or not to track your Z’s
To track or not to track your Z’s
Here at WW, we’ve been talking a lot about getting good sleep – tips for better rest, overcoming nighttime disturbances, how exercise affects your sleep, and the impact of sleep on your mood and hormones. Now we’re looking at the pros and cons of tracking your sleep – some think it’s a great idea, some not so much. You can give it a try and see if it works for you.
The idea of tracking your sleep is becoming more common with the continued popularity of wearable fitness and health monitors.
Wearable technology has been the No. 1 fitness trend, according to the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual survey, since 2016 (save for 2018, when it dropped to No. 3). Fitness trackers can tell you how many steps you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve burned, what your resting heart rate is, and many of them can also give you insight on your sleep patterns.
“Sleep is one of the most underrated, yet most beneficial aspects to our health and well-being,” says Monisha Bhanote, MD, FCAP, a triple board-certified physician and Yoga Medicine® teacher. “Individuals who have sleep issues are at increased risk for developing anxiety, emotional disorders and depression.”
She points out that a Norwegian study found that lack of sleep is a risk factor for anxiety and people with insomnia were 20 times more likely to develop a panic disorder.
“Using a sleep tracker may help you improve your sleep by recording data that you may not have realized was affecting you,” Bhanote says. “They go beyond telling you how many hours you are sleeping to addressing sleep efficiency, restfulness, latency, timing and total sleep. Sleep trackers can also tell how long you are in REM, light and deep sleep.”
One of the most useful measurable items in a sleep tracker is heart rate variability, or HRV, Bhanote says.
“HRV is the variation between each heartbeat and yet another way to track well-being. The variation is controlled by our autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is subdivided into our sympathetic (fight and flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) systems,” she explains.
“So HRV is a non-invasive way to observe imbalances in ANS. The higher our HRV, the greater our capacity to switch gears between fight and flight [and] rest and digest.”
Keep reading for Bhanote’s tips for good sleep hygiene: